February 2016 "Strengthening Environmental Governance by Building the Capacity of Non-Governmental Organizations"

Contracting Party: United Nations Development Program (UNDP)Funded by: The European Union Starting Date:August 2014Ending Date: February 2016

This project intends to address the lack of environmental governance and management that is within Palestine. The environment currently has no firm legislature or policy surrounding it; as a result degradation is happening at an increasing pace. This project aims to apply a structure of environmental governance using stakeholder capacity to a case study of quarries. There will be two main project locations; Ash Shuyukh in Hebron Governorate and Beit Fajjar in Bethlehem Governorate. The overall objective of the project is to contribute to the improvement of environmental governance and aide the facilitation of implementing environmental protection (particularly within quarries). The specific objectives of the project are as follows: To strengthen the capacity of ARIJ and stakeholders for engagement and to empower local communities to manage, monitor and participate in environmental management and governance; to strengthen participatory approaches and facilitate public consultations in order to ensure that environmental issues are accounted for within national and local decision making; and to enhance the capacity of ARIJ along with the stakeholders to participate in the development of policy and legislative frameworks for environmental governance and management both nationally and sub-nationally.

The project will achieve its’ objectives through strengthening the capacities of ARIJ staff members so they are better able to be involved in and contribute to environmental governance at national and local levels. In addition, dissemination of information, capacity building with local stakeholders and NGO’s and influencing national and subnational policy and legislation will be used to achieving the project’s objectives.